


death shall be no more

by Ias



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 01:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15037826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: "I'd rather we leave our tents behind and sleep two to a sack like the orphans we are, than to leave one man alone with last burdens."





	death shall be no more

They leave the tents in the lee of a small knoll, folded around their metal struts and laid out in a row. Each bundle is crowned with as heavy a rock as the men can find, to prevent the wind from carrying them off. As Francis pauses to look back, the sledges grinding along behind him on their perpetual trek south, the grey bundles look like little graves, topped with rough-hewn markers. By the time they’ve gone not fifty paces the grey canvas is scarcely indistinguishable from the landscape, but for the bright red scarf on a spike that marks their presence—in the event they need to return for them.

The circumstances which would necessitate such a course of action are none that Francis wishes to contemplate.

“That canvas and iron must have weighed two hundred stone each,” James says beside him. Though the man is younger and longer in the leg, their paces match easily; once, Francis might have accused James of slowing to accommodate him. Now he sees the stiffness in James’s every step, the way he picks his way through the rocks as gingerly as if they were coals.

“It will ease our load,” Francis agrees. “A fact I am certain we’ll both appreciate, when our time comes to haul.”

James smiles, showing teeth—and then closing his lips all too quickly. Francis knows what he might see were James to grin for longer. The streaks of blood between the teeth, like an animal fresh from the kill—and more sinister, the white line snaking through the gums, as pale as the ice.

“I’m not certain much of anything can make hauling those damn boats easier,” James says.

Francis turns his eyes to the long swath of shale ahead of them, rising into a flat horizon. It looks very much like the long swath they have only just left behind.

“I suppose not.”

 

* * *

 

James is correct. The absence of the tents makes no noticeable impact on the seemingly immovable weight behind them as they throw themselves forward in harness; nor on the agony of the straps digging into their chests as they pull. For weeks Francis has worn bruises across his torso like a sash. But as they pull in tandem for a good part of the day, it is James’s ragged breathing that Francis attunes to—in harness as they are, he can _feel_ every time James stumbles, though he catches himself quickly enough.  

But at the end of the day they have traveled seven miles instead of yesterday’s four; and some of the men who cluster around their spirit stoves are smiling, rather than a gathering of wan-faced and exhausted shades capable only of food and sleep. Though some, of course, have that look about them always.  

Even with such a sparse camp to break, there is much to do—arrangements on where the men are to set up their camps, to best avoid the wind; provisions to be distributed, and plans to discuss. It is getting to be true night by the time Francis finally pauses on the edge of camp, where he can look out over it in its entirety. James stands at his side, having accompanied him through most of the evening’s duties is his wont to do. In the camp below, the men have almost finished negotiating their sleeping arrangements.

It is fascinating to watch. Most default to sharing a sack with whoever they shared a tent; the officers divide up amongst themselves, though they will sleep no more comfortably than the men. Francis watches as Jopson wavers, clearly uncertain where his weeks’ time as an officer leaves him—before Lieutenant Little tugs him over with an easy grip on his shoulder.

A wind storm is brewing, just over the ridge. Francis can hear its low, sucking calls. It will spill over into their exposed little hamlet soon enough, and then the presence of two bodies in each bag will be a comfort rather than an imposition.

But for now, the air stirs but a little; and it is cold, but not as cold as that. The men shuck their coats and boots and shove their suspenders off their shoulders before crawling into their bags. Most sleep back to back, offering what modicum of privacy they can. Others are past such things—he sees Peglar and Bridgens lying face to face, talking in low voices with the canvas pulled tight around them. Jopson and Little are both asleep almost instantly, tucked close as spoons. They have all of them left their self-consciousness behind, swaddled in canvas and weighed down in stone. Here they accept whatever small comforts they can find. 

Francis, of course, will be sharing a sack with James. The cold will spare them no allowance for rank—and of course, Francis does not mind.

He is just turning to James to comment on how odd it is to see no tents, when he notices the man is swaying on his feet. He catches James’s arm, feels him startle as if he had been drifting in the shallows of sleep—Francis steps forward to take both of James’s arms in a firm grip, and immediately no small part of James’s weight sags against his hands. He blinks too rapidly, his tongue scraping over dry lips; even with Francis staring straight into his face, he seems to have difficulty holding his gaze.

“To bed,” Francis says, and it speaks to the extent of James’s exhaustion that the other man does not argue at all.

*

It’s late enough that the sun is finally dipping below the curve of the rise as he leads James to their camp. Bridgens has erected it slightly apart from the others; on colder nights, Francis reflects, he ought to have the men and officers alike pile together like the strange flightless birds he witnessed overwintering in Antarctica. But for tonight, this will do.

For a moment he and James simply stand over the bag, with their personal effects laid out on either side. For some reason the image calls immediately to mind the nightstands which might bracket a marriage bed, rather than a glorified sack thrown over the stony shale. When he glances up at James, a wry smile is slowly making its way through the clouded exhaustion on his face. Perhaps the absurdity of the situation would be less easy to bear, were the winds not beginning to pick up across the featureless stone.

Francis laughs, brief and low, shaking his head as he looks away. “I don’t suppose the rocks will get any softer if we stand around looking at them.”

“I could lie down on a bed of nails and still sleep for a day,” James says. He’s beginning to shrug off his coat, gloved fingers fumbling with the buttons. Francis does the same, only quicker and with less difficulty; after a moment’s hesitation, he folds his coat over and shoves it beneath the sleeping bag. One more layer of cloth might not make a difference, but they are dealing in narrow margins now.

This done, he looks up—and finds James with his coat in his hands, staring at Francis as if he’s forgotten what he’s meant to be doing. It has been some time since Francis saw the man in his shirtsleeves—he cannot help but notice, now, the way his waistcoat hangs loose and flat as if empty. Francis reaches up to take the coat from James’s hands and lay it beneath the bag as well. At the brush of their hands, James blinks.

“You ought to get in, James. It’s too cold.”

James nods, but he does not move. “You should do first,” he says, and Francis hesitates a moment but he does not argue.

He quickly strips his waistcoat before sitting down to tug off his boots and slide into the bag. Francis can feel the outline of every rock beneath him, and knows that the next morning he’ll be cursing every mile they gained by leaving the tents and cots behind. He slips into the bag and, on further thought, shifts as far to the left as possible. Adjusting his position gives him an excuse not to watch the painful way James shucks his gloves, nor the stiffness of his fingers as he finishes with the buttons on his waistcoat. By the time Francis has settled, James is finally kneeling beside him.

For a moment James hesitates, as if stymied. But then he pulls the mouth of the bag open wider, letting in a breath of cold that raises the hairs on Francis’s arms, and begins the awkward production of climbing inside.

There is no graceful way for a person to enter an occupied sleeping bag. Francis remains very still as James slides his legs in, shuffling the rest of his body after; his heels and elbows jostle Francis’s side as he painstakingly arranges himself. At this proximity, Francis cannot ignore the slow stiffness of James’s movements, nor the tremble in his limbs as he holds himself upright.

He wants to ask whether James has spoken to Dr. Goodsir of late. But as he’s rolling onto his side to face James and before he can open his mouth, he hears James suck in a sharp breath—on instinct alone Francis reaches for him, a moment before his muscles give out. He grips James by the shoulders, easing him down on his back.

“Steady, steady,” Francis says, his voice little more than a murmur. James’s face is tight with pain, the tremors becoming full shudders that move through Francis’s palms. James meets his eye only briefly, with a terse nod of thanks; when his weight is fully on the ground his body goes as limp as a puppet with cut strings. Only then does Francis draw back, and try not to think of how thin James’s shoulders had felt beneath his hands, as fleshless as a shirt thrown over the handles of a ship’s wheel.

“It was a rough day hauling,” James says, trying for lighthearted; but the gaze he shares with Francis is wary. _Not tonight_ , it says. _For a while longer, let us just pretend._

“That it was,” Francis says, giving James’s shoulder a final pat before resettling onto his back. The bag is large enough that, laying side by side, their arms press together but they are no more crowded than that. Above them, the sky is still light, no longer white but a royal blue—in the shadow of the hill, it is full night already. The wind snakes its fingers through the open mouth of the bag, probing. Before long it will pour in like water.

Sleep has never come easy to Francis. After a while spent staring at the yet-starless sky, he turns his head to inspect James’s face once more. He appears to be asleep already, his eyelids twitching. A gust of wind sweeps over the edge of the hill, and Francis shivers; he feels the same movement in James’s body, though the man does not even stir. With both of them lying on their backs this way, the mouth of the sleeping back is stretched fully open.

“James.” Francis turns on his side. The rocks might as well be here in the sleeping bag with them. He’ll be covered in bruises come morning, as will the rest of the men. But for now he moves, props himself up on an elbow that instantly becomes a spike of pain driven into the joint, so he might peer at James’s face. “Are you asleep?”

His expression—the side-edge of it that Crozier can see from this vantage point—is slack. The man must be exhausted, to sleep so quickly on so poor a bed.

Careful to keep his movements slow, Francis slides his hand beneath James’s shoulder and gently turns him on his side. The enterprise requires much less exertion than it would have two years ago. A low mumble escapes James’s lips as Francis repositions him, but he does not even stir as Francis settles behind him. He takes the drawstring of the sleeping back and tugs it tighter; with their bodies slotted closer together it can close just under their chins and keep the worst of the wind from slipping inside. Francis suspects most of the men will end up sleeping thus. The hand which he had used to turn James over has no place to settle but atop James’s arm; Francis allows it to rest there, the fingers loose. 

It _is_ strangely intimate, in a manner which dawns slowly. At first Francis thinks nothing of the closeness—until James draws in a slow, shuddering breath, and Francis can feel it expand against his chest. Can feel the press of his bones through cloth and skin, as delicate as a bird’s. Can even feel the man’s heartbeat, too fast and too light; and with moments, it seems, when the beats skip about, as if flailing desperately for the rhythm they’ve followed all of James’s life. Not two days ago they lost John Wickis in such a way; he closed his eyes to sleep and never rose again. His face, at least, had been peaceful.

It’s more than James would want him to perceive. Francis would grant him that privacy; should likely turn so that they lie back to back. But to do so would require much shuffling and jostling, which would wake James from the one mercy any one of them have left. So Francis lies, still and quiet, waiting for sleep and trying not to feel too much.    

Except there it is once again: the little catch in James’s heart. How it seems to miss a beat and then patter weakly to catch up. The exhale of breath as if his body is trying to expel some kind of poison. The inhale which takes too long to come. As if something inside of the man has grown weary of keeping track, is ready to let the time drag longer and longer until the next inhale never comes.  

James’s breathing stops for exactly twenty of Francis’s increasingly rapid heartbeats before he tightens his grip on James’s arm and shakes.

James starts awake as if Francis’s hand was a burning brand. For a moment Francis feels almost guilty—perhaps it would have been better, to simply— _no_. No, it will not come to that. Not tonight. Not like this.

“Francis,” James says, his voice as cracked and dry as his lips. “Has something happened?”

“No,” Francis says after a moment. “But I’ve a favor to ask you.”

Francis cannot see James’s face, slotted against his back as he is; if the man finds it odd that their positions have shifted, he says nothing. “I think we ought to stay awake tonight,” Francis continues. “In the event something should happen. We’d best be ready.”

James draws in a breath. “You believe the creature might come for us, even now?”

“I do,” Francis lies. “We’ve no more tents. No protection, nowhere to hide. I imagine we make quite the appealing target.”

“I suppose you’re right.” No doubt James knows it for a falsehood. Knows better even than Francis what lies in wait for him, on the other side of sleep. James shifts slightly. His muscles tense. “Only, Francis—it may be rather difficult for me to stay awake just now.”

“Why don’t you tell us one of your stories? That ought to rouse us both.”

A faint laugh, as short as a cough. “I never thought I’d see the day when Francis Crozier _requested_ one of my stories,” James says. Francis wishes he could see the smile on his face, brief as it may be. Such expressions are rare enough.

“You’d best make good use of the opportunity, then. Pick one that’s especially long.”

But James lies there in silence for longer than he should, until at last he shakes his head. Francis can feel the tickling of his hair on his nose with the movement. “Nothing really comes to mind, Francis,” he says, in a tone that cannot conceal the despondency which lies beneath.

He cannot remember, Francis realizes. Or at least, the pieces will not fall together as they should, disjointed and disarrayed as all of their minds have become. James’s stories were always complex, as detailed as vast tapestries. Now unravelling.  

“What about Zenjiang?” Francis says, and a brief, incredulous pause follows—he feels James tense, slightly, beneath him. “The time you got shot. I imagine that would be difficult to forget.”

James hums in amusement, without much credulity behind it; but his body relaxes once again. “You must have heard me tell it half a dozen times by now.”

“A full dozen, by my estimate. So if you miss any details, I’m certain I can fill them in.”

“If you really wish to hear it again,” James says at last.

Francis nods, the movement brushing his forelock against the back of James’s shaggy head. “I do.”

“Then for your sake, I suppose I can manage it one more time.” James shifts. Settling in. Francis’s hand remains on his arm, though he feels vaguely that he ought to remove it—but the only other thing to be done with it is to wedge it between their bodies, or lay it awkwardly along his own side. Instead, he leaves it. James does not seem bothered.

“It was in 1842,” James begins. “I’d just come from Syria, on _HMS Ganges_ ; but before I had completed my service aboard that vessel I was nearly pressed into service by Sir William Parker, who was heading for China, and the Opium War.” James tilts his head. “Only, of course, I would have damn near killed a man for the chance to go. When he selected me to be his Gunnery Lieutenant I was practically ready to swim for the Orient.”

Francis smiles in spite of himself. Never once has he heard the story like this—just the two of them. Already James is more candid than he had been any time prior. It lends a warmth that the words had lacked each time before, when James’s face was as polished as a mirror, meant to reflect instead of reveal.   

“So, before I knew what I had so eagerly gotten myself into, I was standing aboard the deck of the _Cornwallis_ heading for parts unknown, feeling positively chuffed with myself for having secured another chance to see action.” At this point James would normally shake his head, rub his arm theatrically, and make some comment only self-deprecating enough to allow him to continue elaborating on his valor.

But today he remains silent. Francis raises his head enough to ensure James hasn’t dozed off, for all that his pulse and breathing remains even; James’s eyes are open, but his brow is creased with a frown, as if wracking his memories for the details which have scattered like sparrows before a summer wind. Francis settles back down, a little closer than before. James’s shoulder blades rest against his chest.

“You know _Zenjiang_ means ‘guarding the river’ in Chinese?” James says at last, his voice slightly distant. “I only learned that afterward.”

Francis waits for him to continue the story, but still there is only silence. A silence which grows thicker and heavier the longer it lasts; like a fog there will be no finding their way back through. Francis squeezes his elbow, once.

“Keep talking, James.” They both know, though neither acknowledge, what’s happening now—what may happen, specifically, if and when James falls asleep. Francis’s fingers press slightly into the inside of James’s elbow, seeking the pulse—seeking, also, the closeness it brings. Lying so close together with his hand so deliberately placed, it is almost like an embrace.  

After another moment of hesitation, James shakes himself slightly. “Yes. Well. The walls around the city were thirty five feet high, and we had to build these ladder contraptions—only it was so dry that all the men on the walls had to do was hold out their lit tapers, and let the wood light…”

Francis falls into the rhythm of the story as he might drift into a dreamless sleep. At times he begins to feel James’s body slacken, his words beginning to stutter and slur along with the beating of his heart. Then Francis shifts his hand upon James’s elbow, slightly up or slightly down, tightening his grip but a little. At which point James’s breathing catches, his limbs jerk with the sudden pull from sleep, and after a brief moment he continues on.  

“So eventually,” James says, “we had repaired the ladder enough that we might make a go of it ourselves. The battle was already well under way; you could hear the screams of men and the crack of rifle-shot, and the only way you knew whose side it was coming from was whether or not it was muffled by the wall. I’m afraid to say, when I first put my boots to the bottom rung of that ladder, I almost could not bring myself to take the first step.”  

“You never told me that before,” Francis says, and James’s shrug rubs against his chest.

“I suppose I still sought to impress you, back then.” James shifts his position slightly. Whether intentionally or not, he ends up lying more tightly pressed to Francis’s front than before. The wind is picking up even now, a gnawing presence at every inch of exposed skin. With hardly any space between their two bodies, Francis feels almost warm.  

For a long moment there is only silence. When James speaks at last, his voice is rough. “Francis, I can’t quite remember…”

“And then you went over the wall,” Francis says gently. “And the city smelled of roasted duck.”

After a moment James chuckles, once. “I remember now. Only it didn’t really, Francis. It smelled _awful_. Burning hair, and cloth, and straw. The smoke rose with me as I climbed. It was almost pouring over the top of the wall. I couldn’t see, could hardly breathe. There was nothing to be done than just move forward—no time even to feel fear.”

“I’m certain many men felt their fair share that day,” Francis says pointedly. “You need not disregard your courage.”

“I’ve spent long enough indulging it,” James says. “I feel no need to now. Not with you.”

There’s nothing Francis can say to that, except to lean his forehead against the back of James’s head, and allow his fingers to move across the crease inside James’s elbow; he is not even certain James can feel the motion.

“I don’t much feel like finishing this story tonight.” James’s heart skips in his chest like a stone. “And you already know how it’s to end.”

“Not yet, we don’t,” Francis says, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. To that, James says nothing at all.

Francis slides his hand higher on James’s arm to give it a reassuring squeeze—and at once James’s body is wracked with a different sort of tension, the breath stuttering in his throat. Sitting up slightly, Francis sees that his face is set in a faint grimace. “Are you hurt, James?”

“No. No, Francis.” Slowly, James’s ungloved fingers raise to Francis’s—and peel the hand off his arm as delicately as he might remove a bandage from tender flesh. It strikes Francis that this is the very wounded arm featured in James’s tale, except that bullet passed through the flesh closer to a decade ago. For a moment James seems to hesitate, Francis’s hand in his own, as if uncertain of what to do with it. Then he simply keeps Francis’s hand in his grasp, relaxing so that both their hands lie pressed against the center of his chest. “Just tired.”

Francis lets out a breath against the back of his neck, slow and uneven. James’s grip on his hand is loose, one which allows Francis to pull away at any moment. The thought is inconceivable. His arm around James’s shoulders does not tighten, no matter how he wishes to. No matter how close they lie, the knowledge of what is happening to James lies ever between them; cold as the wind. He could tug James flush to him until their hearts were pressed close enough to almost beat as one, and still death would be as thin and close as a sheen of sweat on their skin.

“Perhaps you ought to rest your eyes,” Francis says at last, in a voice very quiet and very strained under the weight of words he is trying not to say.  

James shakes his head. The movement drags his hair across Francis’s face like a brush. “Not while you lie awake.”

Francis smiles in spite of himself. “Very well. Then I’ll tell _you_ a story, to keep you wakeful—and I’ll hear no complaints about my lack of ability.”

This time, James’s laugh is more genuine. Francis can feel its vibrations settling into his chest. “Not even a few suggestions?”

Francis moves his head forward slightly. His nose brushes the skin on the back of James’s neck, and he finds it warm. “If you must.”

Already James’s body is relaxing. Francis wracks his memory only briefly—he only has so many stories to tell. “There was the time,” he begins, “on the _Briton_ , when we came across the last of the mutineers from _HMS Bounty…_ ”

His voice remains low enough that it will not tug James from the sleep overtaking him now. It fills his muscles like water, his limbs growing loose and heavy where they lie. Francis can feel him drifting off, like a boat into the center of a still lake; the rope passing lightly through his hands, tethering James always to the shore—to him.

The time will come to let go. But it will not come tonight.

After a while, Francis stops talking. Only listens, and waits. Against James’s chest, Francis turns his hand so the pad of his thumb slips into the V of his shirt, to rest against the top of the man’s sternum. He rubs the digit back and forth in a fixed rhythm, as if setting a pace for James’s heart to follow.

For a time, it beats steady.

 

* * *

 

When Francis wakes, the wind has stopped. The dawn is moments from breaking, the eastern sky a pale watery blue. After a night feeling as if the weather were a great bird attempting to carry them off in the night, all beating wings and raking talons and a cold that slashed to the bone, the silence now is deafening. In it, James’s heartbeat fills the entire world.

Francis shifts. He is, remarkably, warm. It takes him a moment to recall the body next to his, its identity and purpose. In the moments before, he does not care.

James lets out a slow, even breath. Francis feels it on the skin of his neck, where James’s cheek is pressed—a solid warmth, with the softness of his hair tickling the underside of Francis’s cheek and jaw. Their legs tangle, stockinged feet pressing to the backs of calves where some lingering warmth is yet to be found. James shifts, slightly, and the cold of his nose against the skin beneath his ear almost makes Francis jump.

No sounds from the rest of camp. No footsteps over the shale coming closer. Francis’s own arms clasp around James’s shoulders, his forehead pressed to James’s shoulder. He could practically press his mouth over the center of James’s pulse, where it lies just below the open collar of his shirt. Slowly, carefully, he lets his palm press firmer to the small of James’s back—lets his fingers splay out as if trying to cover as much space as possible.

“Must we rise?” James’s voice is a low rumble against his neck, the words are rough-edged and clumsy with sleep. His mouth moves against Francis’s neck as lightly as the breath of the wind, but its touch is soft and warm.

Francis does not ask him how long he has been awake. He does not ask why James did not pull away. There is no space for such considerations in the close space between them now. They have left them behind, far behind, in that line of little cloth graves that blends indistinguishable into the landscape. No need for them anymore.

He turns his face, the movement so small as to be almost imperceptible, until his mouth is to the lobe of James’s ear. He wants his words to be felt as much as they are heard.  

“There’s time yet, James. There’s time.”

This time when James relaxes back into the soft, heavy weight of sleep, he tugs Francis along with him.

**Author's Note:**

> One short sleep past, we wake eternally  
> [And death shall be no more;](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44107/holy-sonnets-death-be-not-proud) Death, thou shalt die.
> 
> Find me on [on tumblr.](plaidmax.tumblr.com)


End file.
